Marketing

Too many property managers aren’t aware of the free tools offered by a familiar online company. You’ve heard of Yelp, but did you know that 132 million people use it monthly for buying decisions? The most recent data suggests there are over 57 million reviews on Yelp. More importantly 82% of Yelp users go there […]

Google+ is an Internet marketing tool that you can use to grow your property management business. If you’ve never used it before, think of it as an updated and digital re-creation of the yellow pages. It provides the same service to a local business by providing a category and a specific location for what you do and where you are. When your property management business is on Google+, anyone searching for a company like yours in your area will be able to find you.

At Fourandhalf, we spend a lot of time talking to our clients about property management marketing techniques. However, even the best marketing strategies will fall short if a property manager isn’t able to close leads. Without a lead management system, your marketing efforts, social media presence, your pay per click programs and your business networking will simply be a way of spending money instead of making it.

Property managers are starting to cater to the next big rental market; Generation Yers. With an estimated 80 million people born between 1978 and 1995, Gen Yers can be a great group to target as prospective tenants. According to a study by Pew Research Center, they are less likely to buy a home then previous […]

The @ sign is like magic, it is called a Reply or a Mention and is public. When you use the @ symbol before someone’s name (for example: @CharityHisle) you are targeting that update TO that person. Twitter even links to that person’s account to help connect your followers to one another.

With over 4 million users, Pinterest is now in the top 10 list of social networks! It is a unique (and public) website that allows users to organize and share images and videos from across the web with one another. Think of Pinterest as an online bulletin board!

Twitter is one of the most difficult social networks to explain and to learn for property management professionals. Often I hear questions like, “What do we say?” or “Who are we talking to?” Let’s try to clear up the confusion today!

While the holidays always make us think about ways to engage residents in the holiday spirit, there are many activities and events that property managers can organize and easily implement that can be used not only during the holiday season, but throughout the year.

Believe it or not, the world has not abandoned Twitter, in fact, just the opposite. While Facebook and Google Plus use are declining, Twitter is gaining users globally. The average user sends a half a Tweet per day and the site has reached 360 million registered users.

The natural evolution of Search Engine Optimization is Digital Asset Optimization (DAO), the optimization of all of your online content. This includes images, audio files, video’s and even PDFs. Anything you place online has a keyword title, meta tag and a clear description to influence search engines.

Start using testimonials in your leasing office, in your models, on your website and even on your collateral materials. Have a variety of demographic groups in your testimonials. The 65 year old empty nester couple might not relate well to the 22 year old roommates fresh out of college in their first jobs, you know?

While you shouldn’t focus all of your efforts solely on Facebook, it does make sense to optimize the content posted on Facebook. Facebook search is linked to keywords within all public posts, profiles, pages, groups and applications but very few are utilizing this opportunity to increase their Facebook SEO.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to your website from internet search engines. Search engines want to return the most relevant results possible to their users. According to eMarketer, 94% of shoppers click on the 1st through 10th search results. Optimizing your online presence for search engines will drive traffic to your website.

Several years ago, I had the honor of speaking at an industry conference held at the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas. It’s a great hotel and if you ever get the chance to stay there, take it. After three nights I was not only in love with the hotel, but I was big time in […]

Craigslist has become an indispensable resource for just about anything. One of their most popular sections is Apts/Housing, which covers everything from monthly move-in specials to single family home rentals. However, the single family homes category is ripe with scammers looking to rip potential renters off.

Whether it’s an open house or a pool party, your apartment community should be sharing events on Facebook. As the largest social network, the average Facebook user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events. Facebook is a good place for property managers to share events with their residents and prospects.

We all know how happy great, new content makes Google. If you can find 30 minutes each week to write 1 or 2 articles for your property management blog you will definitely start to see more traffic coming to your website.